Woman discovers Uber driver is 'You've Got Mail' guy

Elwood Edwards, an Uber driver, recorded AOL's famous email greeting more than 20 years ago. (Brandee Barker/Twitter (CNN))

CNN

Tuesday, November 08, 2016

SHAKER HEIGHTS, Ohio --

You never know who your Uber driver might be.

Just ask Brandee Barker, a Californian out canvassing for Hillary Clinton's campaign in Ohio over the weekend.

Her Uber driver was Elwood Edwards. You won't recognize his name or his face, but you've definitely heard him before -- Edwards is the voice behind AOL's "You've Got Mail" greeting.

Barker said Elwood was taking her to Clinton's campaign office in Shaker Heights when he told her about his AOL fame.

"I completely geek freaked and asked if he would do the video," she told CNN.

She posted this video of Edwards saying the famous phrase on Twitter.

"No way!" Barker squeals in the video, before asking him to say it again.

Edwards, a longtime voice actor, recorded the famous famous phrase -- along with others like "Welcome," "File's Done" and "Goodbye" -- because of his wife. Back in the late 80s she worked for Quantum Computer Services, the company that would later become AOL, and she overheard the company's CEO saying he wanted a voice to notify people when they receive email.

She told them about her husband, he recorded the phrases on a cassette tape and became the internet's voice. He was paid $200 for the voice over, he told Barker.

In addition to his voice over work, Edwards worked for several years as a news editor at a TV station in Cleveland before recently retiring.

Last year he was on "The Tonight Show" reading phrases for Jimmy Fallon.